From the Founder
A short story about one number — and the engineering decision behind it, made back in 2020.
The number 460 in the name of our headlamp was never a marketing trick. It is the single most important technical feature of the product — so important that we decided to put it right in the name.
When we set out to build this headlamp, we had one clear goal: to make the fishing line as visible as possible at night, using safe, visible light. After testing, we chose a wavelength of 460 nanometres.
The wavelength of the light used by the KATRAN headlamp. It sits in the visible blue-light spectrum — not in the ultraviolet (UV) range.
We wanted maximum night-time visibility of the line — achieved with visible blue light, not ultraviolet radiation. That decision is written into the product name so nobody has to guess.
Strong night-time visibility of the fishing line is not a luxury — for many anglers it decides how confidently they fish after dark. Our goal was simple to state and harder to engineer: make the line as visible as possible at night, using light that is safe to work under for hours.
That single requirement pointed us to one specific wavelength. We chose 460 nanometres because it makes the line light up clearly while keeping the light itself in the safe, visible range.
Everything about the headlamp follows from that one choice. The name carries the wavelength; the light does the work on the bank.
See the headlamp
This is the point that gets confused most often. 460 nm belongs to visible blue light, not to ultraviolet radiation. It gives excellent night-time visibility of your line while staying safely outside the UV spectrum.
That distinction mattered enough to us that we refused to hide it in a spec sheet. We put the number in the product name so any angler could understand the technology at a glance — no marketing translation required.
Today, a lot of anglers know our headlamp simply as the “W/B 460.” Fewer know what the number actually stands for. Now you do: it is the wavelength we engineered the light around — clear line visibility at night, and outside the ultraviolet spectrum.
Sometimes a single small number tells you more about a product’s philosophy than a long marketing description. 460 is not just a number — it is the engineering decision we made back in 2020.
When we name a product, we try to make the name honest. With the headlamp, the most honest thing we could say was the wavelength itself — because that is where the whole design starts.
460 nm gives our anglers what they asked for: a line that stands out clearly at night, lit by safe visible blue light rather than UV. Six years on, that decision still holds.
460 is not just a number. It is an engineering decision.
